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Re: [ontology-summit] Capability

To: "'Pavithra'" <pavithra_kenjige@xxxxxxxxx>, "'Ontology Summit 2013 discussion'" <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "'Ian Bailey'" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Hans Polzer" <hpolzer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:59:54 -0400
Message-id: <030501ce2118$68cf9790$3a6ec6b0$@verizon.net>

Pavithra,

 

The issue regarding terms such as “capability” and “enterprise” is that they are often used to convey implicit context and scope. But the context and scope is best left to a separate set of modifiers (or dimensional specifiers). You’ll note that the “C” in the name of the NCOIC “SCOPE” model stands for “Capability”. The point of doing that was to highlight that all of the terms in the SCOPE acronym are usually associated with implicit scope, but they really don’t specify any explicit scope by themselves. For example, an enterprise can be something that an individual embarks upon, or even just the individual him/herself. But of course, most people use the term “enterprise” to convey a fairly large scale entity or activity, something on the order of hundreds or thousands of people, say, or even larger. Similarly, the term capability as used in today’s session primarily originated in the defense domain to convey large scale ability/potential to accomplish operational mission objectives (the airplane “performance envelop” example used being actually a fairly small-scale illustration of that usage). Of course, you are correct that in a more constrained scope context, capability might be a feature of a specific product or system (other words contributing to the SCOPE acronym). SCOPE was intended to serve as a semi-quantitative framework for describing (or exploring/investigating/eliciting) the scope of any such entity or activity (the “O” in SCOPE being “Operation”, but it could be “Ontology” with a little bit of modification), rather than relying on people intuiting some particular scope from the term used to represent the entity or activity implicitly.

 

Hans

 

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pavithra
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:26 PM
To: Ian Bailey; Ontology Summit 2013 discussion
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Thank you.

 

Ian,

I don;t want to repeat, but in
In general for software development,   a capability is a "feature" or  a " function" or a "service"  that the product or software is capable of providing.   As you said, it is used at a strategic level and later mapped to requirements and systems and so forth.

An use case specifies the usage.  It is developed in futuristic way to help the designers to capture how that "feature" or  a " function" or a "service" be used by the users ( actor or system when automated)   and the behavior of the product or software.    It is developed during detail requirement stage!

Scenarios should capture  all different ways that "feature" or  a " function" or a "service" can be used and exceptions and error handling.

Test cases should include all the scenarios with unique sets of data to capture all possible types of  input and exceptions and error handling.

Matrices are developed based on the correct behavior of the test cases .. 0 tolerance is one such matrix.

It was part of RUP development life cycle.. .  Rational Rose developed Use case modeling initially. They also supported Object Oriented Modeling and UML.  hope that helps.

Thanks,
Pavithra



 

 


From: Ian Bailey <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Pavithra <pavithra_kenjige@xxxxxxxxx>; Ontology Summit 2013 discussion <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 3:57 PM
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Thank you.

 

Folks,

 

The concept of capability as a tool for strategic planning originates in the military. I think McKinsey did the original work on this in the 90s for UK MOD and also some work in US DoD. Capability is explicitly NOT about process. The whole idea is to allow strategic thinking without resorting to design of processes. Capabilities should be expressed in terms of outcomes - what, not how. Once you've worked out your capabilities, you can think about the processes and systems needed to deliver the capability. The concept has now found much wider use in the commercial world - see http://hbr.org/2010/06/the-coherence-premium/ar/1 and it also seems to have found a home in IT for portfolio management and application rationalisation, though whether those guys stick to the process-independence rule is somewhat questionable. 

 

It's a very tricky concept to model in an ontology. In IDEAS we take the approach that a capability is the set of all possible things that are capable of achieving a particular outcome. Capabilities can have measures of effectiveness which constrain the members of the set. This approach seems to work for military architectures and strategic acquisition planning. We then have the concept of a capability configuration (people, systems and processes) that deliver the capability (these become subtypes of the capability) and finally fielded capabilities - physical things that are instances of the capability configuration and also therefore instances of the capability. MODAF works this, and I think DoDAF does too.

 

Chris Partridge did a lot of work on this for us - esp. around the dispositional aspects of capability. 

 

Regards

--

Ian Bailey

www.modelfutures.com
www.integrated-ea.com
tel: +44 7768 892362 

 

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On 14 March 2013 19:44, Pavithra <pavithra_kenjige@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello,

Thank you again.  
Regarding the discussion about "Capability", I would like to add my two sense to it here.
A capability can be translated as a  function  or service that meets certain set of  requirements as defined by stake holders/organization/interested parties .  If it is accomplished or  performed  by an "actor" or another "system"  it can be written as use case or multiple use cases.  Scenarios can be used to handle multiple dimension of  the capability.   Even tho use cases look simplistic, they are not necessarily that simple,  the scenarios can handle complexities to certain level..
Thanks,
Pavithra

 

 


From: Joanne Luciano <jluciano@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Ontology Summit 2013 Organizing Committee <ontology-summit-org@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Ontology Summit 2011 discussion <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: David F Andersen <david.andersen@xxxxxxxxxx>; Jana Hrdinova <jhrdinova@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Nicolau F Depaula <ndepaula@xxxxxxxxxx>; "James Michaelis (michaj6@xxxxxxx)" <michaj6@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 2:32 PM
Subject: [ontology-summit] Thank you.

 

RE: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2013_03_14

 

THANKS:

 

 to the organizers for the opportunity to present (which gave the the opportunity to develop the ideas a bit further).

 

 to the participants for their questions, they will help make the next communication better.

 

And THANK YOU to 

 

RPI Tetherless World Constellation 

"James Michaelis (michaj6@xxxxxxx)" <michaj6 AT rpi.edu>

 

Center for Technology in Government iChoose Ontology Development team

 

Nicolau F Depaula <ndepaula AT albany.edu>, 

Djoko Sigit Sayogo <dsayogo AT ctg.albany.edu>, 

Jana Hrdinova <jhrdinova AT ctg.albany.edu>, 

David F Andersen <david.andersen AT albany.edu>

 

for being great collaborators and for the opportunity to work on IChoose (CTG)

 

happy to answer questions, and happier to guide and develop the GOEF framework if you think you would find it useful.

 

 

Kind regards,

Joanne

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joanne S. Luciano, PhD                                     Tetherless World Constellation 

Research Associate Professor Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Deputy Director, Web Science Research Center 110 8th Street, Winslow 2143                     

Email: jluciano@xxxxxxx Troy, NY 12180, USA 

Office Tel. +1.518.276.4939                               Global Tel. +1.617.440.4364 (skypeIn)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 



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